


The Badlands, The Badlands

by Happy_Cow



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Benjamin Solo is complicit, Brief mention of abortion in Ch 10, Country & Western, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Domestic Fluff, Domestic Violence, F/M, Gaslighting, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kylo Ren & Ben Solo are Twins, Kylo Ren is Not Nice, Loss of Virginity, Older Man/Younger Woman, Painful Sex, Punishment, Rey is their baby sister, Sibling Incest, Sibling Rivalry, Slow Burn, Tags May Change, breylo - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2020-10-26 08:54:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 10
Words: 18,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20739572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Happy_Cow/pseuds/Happy_Cow
Summary: Ever since Momma and Han left, Ben and Rey had struck it out alone together, and they've been doing pretty well. Then Kylo returned.





	1. The Prodigal Son

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MalevolentReverie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MalevolentReverie/gifts), [succubusybody](https://archiveofourown.org/users/succubusybody/gifts).

> I had a darkfic lingering in my head n wanted to share it;; thank u for reading n writing such good content. I can eat just fine, but I like cooking, too.

The day started like any other. A white sheet covered the sky and drained the color out of the world. Rey made him breakfast and fed the animals, and then he drove her to school. She kissed him goodbye, and then he drove to Dameron’s ranch where he’d get lunch and worked until he had to drive Rey back. On a boring old day (on a perfect day, in retrospect), she’d make dinner, and then they would curl up together on the good sofa and read or watch the television, like when she was small. 

This day, all of that went to shit.

“... Hey, Ben? Whose car is that?” Rey asked.

“I don’t know,” Ben replied. A black, dirty pickup lay in front of the house. Rey leaned against the headboard, pulling the seatbelt to its limit. “Sit back.” He grabbed her thin shoulder and pulled her back to her seat; she only gave him a cute pout in return, but now she had the _jitters_. Any drop of something new in their lives would still work her up to a froth, and it hadn’t... _disappeared_ like Han said it would, even though it’s his genes that made her this way. A useless no-good son of a bitch even in absentia.

As soon as he pulled down the driveway, the rabbit uncoupled her seatbelt, unlocked the door, and ran out before Ben could ponder what the tax man wanted, because who else would visit? “_Hey_!” he screamed after her. —_God what an infuriating little girl_. Visions of bending her over his knee and paddling her denim bottom danced in his head. He fumed in silence as he threw his weight onto the lousy brake and shoved the stick into park. He unfolded himself from the inside of the car, and slung her backpack over his shoulder, just as footsteps resounded on the wooden steps. 

“Ben!” she cried. He glanced up at her, bright eyed and bushy tailed Rey. —_Couldn’t be the tax man_. “Benji, look who it is!”

Ben faltered. Was there a non-stranger inside their house? His heart sank — someone they knew, who Rey loved, who would show up unannounced... 

The sound of heavy boots approached from inside the house. From out the front door, there emerged a face that Ben knew well. It was the one he faced every day in the bathroom mirror. A long, miserable face with too wide lips, and that wedge of a nose.

Kylo.

The long lost brother gazed at him for a moment, before, hands in his pockets, he sauntered down the steps. “Long time no see, Benji,” he said, smiling. — _Is my voice that fucking nasally? _“I like those, uh,” he gestured at his face, “fancy _glasses_ there. When did you start needing those?”

“Hm. Maybe around the same time you stopped cutting your hair,” Ben countered. 

Kylo grinned. He turned his head, letting his one rattail flop over his shoulder. “I like it too, actually,” he said.

Before Ben could devastate him with his wit, Rey popped out of nowhere: “It’s quite adorable, actually. Do all the boys in the city wear their hair like that?”

“No,” said Kylo, “only the men of importance can wear their hair whatever way they want-.” His swagger broke as Rey sidled next to him, so she could touch his fancy new hair. He ran a tongue over his lip, then his shifty eyes met Ben’s.

It was all Ben could do to not strangle the man there and then.

xxx

The question ‘If he had to choose between Han or Kylo returning’ was the near-equivalent of asking Benjamin whether he wanted to get shot in his head or his penis, were the gunman to let him choose. Truth be told, the resurrection of Kylo did feel like a spiritual castration: Rey sadly sacrificed one of her chickens to make dinner, and then they sat together on the good chair while Kylo regaled her with wholesome, and of course truthful tales about city life. Well if it were so fucking great there, he should’ve stayed there, was what Ben thought to himself. But he didn’t, because he had manners.

As if reading his thoughts, Rey asked, “But why did you come back here, Mr. City-slicker? I thought you hated this place.”

Kylo smiled, and he shrugged, playing the no-good swain that near lured every breeding age female from sixteen to forty from House Holdo into his bedroom. Pig-disgusting piece of shit. “I don’t... know, per se,” he drawled. “When you’re out traveling by yourself, you start to miss the things you knew to be familiar. Like, fresh air, family...”

“Don’t tell me you missed us,” Rey said. “_Noooo_...” Ever the lady, she pulled her foot into the seat and kicked at his thigh. 

This didn’t look right. Rey had colored her lips with rouge and done her hair up for the occasion, and even in denim jeans she looked like a little lady. Kylo gained the same number of years as him, but either genetics or hard-living made him look like an old, ugly pervert the way he eyed his own sister.

Rey continued, “I think maybe you crossed somebody. I think you touched a married lady and you were chased out of town by the husband or something!”

Kylo thought about this. He worked his jaw and puckered his lips in an ugly way. “Hm. Okay, you got me,” Kylo said. His hand wrapped around her ankle and he yanked her down so that she was flush against the couch. The rabbit gave a yelp, which turned to laughter as her brother pulled up her shirt and ran his hands up and down her lean little waist -

When Ben came to, he saw himself snarling and spitting at the end of his own raised fist, which was wrapped tight around his collar.

“Ben, let him go!” His little sister wrapped herself around his arm. “Ben, he wasn’t hurting me! Just let go!”

Ben shoved away his brother, and before Kylo could retaliate, she placed herself between them and caught the man in her arms. “Let’s go outside, Kylo let’s go outside,” she pleaded. “I - I wanna show you the garden, let’s go.”

Surprise, then something else stabbed deep in Ben. Kylo lowered his fist, took a glance at his brother, and then swept Rey out of the room, out of the house. He took his baby sister. The static in the living room dissipated, leaving Ben alone.

xxx

It was late in the night. Ben raised his head; he didn’t hear giggling or crying, only the muffled sound of the tv in the living room. That strange pain in his chest still lingered — he took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. With a sigh, he stood up from his desk, stretched, then closed the accounts book before placing it into his drawer before leaving his office. The light from the tv flashed in the dark, and from this light he could make out only the slight form of his sister, curled into herself in Han’s chair. Somebody had wrapped Leia’s heirloom Alderaan blanket around her. 

Ben watched her a moment, before reaching up underneath her. He hadn’t done this since she was a child, when the earth was wonderful and new and at the end of every day she would collapse where she stood until the sun rose tomorrow. Remarkably, she still fit in his arms — Ben and Kylo took their stock either from Vader or Han’s mysterious breeding, but Rey would always be _petite_, he suspected — like their mother. She would always be a little Alderaanian princess, even without the vineyards or the jewels.

He carried her into her room, and lowered her onto her bed, blanket and all.

As he moved out of the room, the hairs on the back of his arm raised. He turned his head and saw his own shadow, lingering in the hallway. Ben reached behind him and lightly closed the bedroom door, turning the doorknob so it wouldn’t catch on the lock. The two stared each other down, silently assessing what time did to the other. At whatever cost, Ben wouldn’t let him near Rey.

... And at last, Kylo conceded to that. He shrugged his shoulders as if to say ‘There’s always tomorrow’ and stalked out of the hall. Reluctantly, Ben followed after, the floorboards creaking under his weight. 

Kylo made his way to the kitchen, opened the fridge, and tugged out the contents of the lower layer, before setting them on the island with a thunk of glass rattling on cardboard. He took a bottle for himself and uncapped it on the side of the island, before lightly pushing the beer carton towards Ben. To the casual reader, this gesture would resemble a peace offering, but Ben shared sixteen years with this man and knew the machinations that went on in that mind.

Kylo placed the lip of the spout to his mouth and took an experimental sip — his nose crinkled, and he shook his head, but he made no comment. “So,” he chirped, before clearing his throat, “how are... _you_, Ben?” With his left hand, he absent-mindedly fiddled with the aluminum cap. 

“Fine,” said Ben. Whatever venom he had in him diminished, somewhat, but he wouldn’t admit it to himself. “You?”

Kylo shrugged. “Alright.” He sniffed. “Truth be told, coming here was a bit of a moonshot; I had no idea if you two would still be here.”

“Oh and where was I _supposed_ to go?” Ben snapped; it’s not like he didn’t wish to fuck it all and hop on a bus away from this shithole.

Kylo already began shaking his head, his rattail waggling back and forth. “If you think I came here to fight you, Ben, you’ve got it wrong.”

“Well what brought you back here?” Ben asked.

Kylo sighed, and his fingers stopped worrying the bottle cap. “If you wondered, Ben, city-life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.” He faltered. “The ability to profit is matched by high cost of living, and that’s if you can even get the right job...” He made a show with his hands of a set of balance scales.

“Recession,” Ben blurted out. Well he had keener observations to make out because he read the papers, but Kylo wouldn’t be able to grasp them. “You were chased out of town by the recession.”

Kylo blinked his eyes owlishly. A tinge of dark color touched his face, but Kylo smiled it off and ran his fingers over the back of his head. This was too good. Ben goaded, “You couldn’t pull the wools over my eyes, Kylo. I’m a lot more perceptive than Rey.”

“Yea, she did mention you should’ve been going to college,” Kylo muttered.

They reminisced for a little bit. Ben opened a beer, and he too experienced how shit it tasted. Kylo inquired about House Holdo, and in retrospect that house did resemble a menagerie of bitches in heat. This was what brotherhood should’ve been, Ben realized. Kylo pissed him off occasionally, but maybe what Ben hated all along was the feeling of missing his brother.

It was Kylo at last who said, “We better get a little quieter before we wake up the little girl.”

Ben shook his head. “No, she’s a pretty deep sleeper. Like a log.” When Kylo perked his head up, Ben elaborated, “She’s always been like that, you were just too stuck up your own ass. You could pick her up and cuddle her when she was small. Sometimes she squeaks like a rabbit.”

Kylo stared at him, then tipped the contents of his bottle into his mouth. He went pensive for a moment, then asked, “Is she gonna get taller? She swears she’s got one more inch left in her.”

Ben laughed, and it surprised him too. “She’s says that every year, but she’s got her height and looks from momma’s side.”

“Cute, cute,” Kylo said, smiling.


	2. Rey the Lady

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gotta run but thank u for reading!!

It was nice having a big family again. Rey didn’t remember much about Kylo, except vague snatches of sensations. What does a six year old little girl recall about a sixteen year old wildling? He was tall, he had dark hair, and if you followed him around enough, he would either yell at you or pick you up. Also he smelled very, very sweaty, like a teenage boy. In the past.

Strange how much he resembled Ben, but also not quite. She wouldn’t say this aloud, but Ben looked a little older, and softer. Maybe it was because he was familiar, and he wore square-framed glasses. He also grew a dusting of facial hair over his upper lip. He looked like Daddy.

Kylo looked like Daddy-but-in-the-photobook. He was clean-shaven but he wore his hair long, and when he smiled he got dimples in the corners of his cheeks. Kylo had moviestar good looks. (He could’ve gone to Hollywood in the last year, for all she knew!)

Ben said twins run in the family; it didn’t look it, but Uncle Luke and Momma were twins. When Rey was small, she used to pretend she had an imaginary sister named Kira, and Kira was right-handed where Rey was left-handed. But that was a long time ago, and Kira was long since gone, as figments of imagination go. Kylo was real, and Ben should appreciate that while he still can!

The floorboards sounded the approach of one of them. “Good morning,” hummed Rey. She turned away from the stove.

He rest his forearms against the sides of the doorframe, taking up the entrance to the kitchen. A grey wife-beater clung tight to his torso, and the jeans he had on cinched tight around his waist. His dark eyes roamed over her, his expression pensive. With the way he curled his body, he resembled a black-maned predator determining whether to spring.

The pan spit indignantly, drawing Rey back to the present. Her tongue felt dry, and her skin hot. “Hi, Kylo!” she chirped. She picked up the spatula and poked at the thick cut of bacon sticking to the pan. “What’re you doing u—“

Long, warm hands closed around her tummy. She stepped away from the spattering pan and backed into a solid, warm wall. Kylo nosed the crown of her head. Rey felt as though she floated somewhere above her body. He snuffled in her hair like a big, friendly dog, then grabbed her hand around the spatula to stir the onions and peppers. “Knew something smelled good,” he muttered, his throat vibrating pleasantly with his words. 

Rey made some heavy-breathing noises. Her long-lost brother sure was warm against her behind! “U-uh,” she croaked, her voice husky. “Do you like vegetables?” When he didn’t respond, she explained, “Ben doesn’t, so I try to slip it in as much animal fat as I can. Peppers and onions (so long as they’re cut up small), and potatoes —. Anything else is rabbit food to him.”

He made a string of noise that sounded like _I’ll eat anything out of you_. Instead, he said, “Yeah, I like bell peppers and onions and okra. Not cilantro, though. And I’m hesitant about raw salads or raw tomatoes, so I’m not a total rabbit.”

“Oh, that’s fine.” She smiled. “I’m not picky, so Ben’ll sometimes call me ‘rabbit’.”

Kylo made a pleased sound in his throat and hugged her tighter. “... Not many girls know how to cook anymore,” he said. “I’m glad you do. Makes you look like a proper lady.”

Rey had to think about that one. “Now wait a minute,” said Rey. “My whole life, Ben calls me a tomboy, and now one day after seeing me in front of a stove, you think I’m a ‘_lady_’?” 

“Oh I’ll tell him you’re a lady,” Kylo offered. 

When she tilted up her head, she could make out the depths of his deep-set, gold eyes, fringed with long eyelashes. The beauty marks that dotted his nose. _He was so, so very beautiful_. Heavy footsteps came from down the hall, and uncomfortable feelings began churning inside of her belly. At once, Kylo released her to get the plates on the table.

Ben came in, mouth open in a great big yawn. He stretched his big ol’ arms skyward, and his shirt rode up to reveal his fuzzy navel. Nope nope nope. Not gonna do this today.

“Morning, rabbit,” hummed Ben, making his way to the fridge.

“Morning, Thing-Number-Two,” retorted Rey. 

“I came out first, actually. I’m Thing-Number-One,” Ben said, before pulling out a carton of milk. “That’s why _I_ got the _good_ name, Kylo-Solo.”

“Haha!” said Kylo, “Yeah, yeah ya did.”


	3. "I hope to hell that when I do die..."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "... somebody has the sense to just dump me in the river or something."
> 
> This is the chapter where everything went to shit.
> 
> Hence the long wait. (; w ; 7) (i got sick and had a big exam last week, im sorry)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> boo
> 
> TW: capital punishment, poe, poo book i don't like, ben smells his sister

“Hey, Ben?” she said aloud. “Ben.”

He raised his head from the paper, blinking owlishly. 

“Um, so, there’s an English exam coming up. I need some help with that, so, I’ll be going to Rose’s house after school tomorrow. There’s bread and cold cuts, so you can make yourself a sandwich for dinner.”

“What’s the book?” he asked.

“_Catcher in the Rye_.” She swayed on her feet.

“What’s your problem with it?”

“... I don’t get it.”

“I can help with that.” Ben set the paper down and he got up to pick through the bookshelf. He never put them in any order, just remembered where they were. He and Mama were the only voracious readers in this house. His fingers dragged along the spines until he recognized the color and read the name, J.D. Salinger. He tugged it out, and sauntered over to the floral loveseat.

Rey blew a sigh through her lips, her face pinkening. At last, she sidled over to him, sliding between his body and the arm of the chair. The little girl always smelled nice. When she was a baby she smelled like ham, but now it’s cooking oil and something sweet. 

“Ben stop sniffing me,” she spat, nudging him in the thigh.

“Sorry, rabbit.” He cleared his throat. 

In her mind, it was a story about a rich kid wandering around and nothing happens. It was an exercise in narcissism, to tell a story about yourself being rich and sad.

The thing to note was Holden’s loss of interest in living; even with all his wealth and all his friends, he still wasn’t satisfied. His old crush is fucking somebody else, and the prostitute he hires summons her pimp to go beat him up when Holden wouldn’t sleep with her. Holden makes a pilgrimage home to the time where he remembers being truly happy, which is what the ducks symbolize. After seeing Phoebe, Holden begins to associate his condition with the loss of his own innocence from growing up. The ‘catcher in the rye’ is his dream to protect other children from that loss. His sister Phoebe is the only person he truly, albeit possessively loves; she represents the past and the innocence that he lost.

Ben turned to his own sister, whose nose had crinkled. “What is it?” he asked.

“... She’s his sister,” she said, “and she’s _ten_.”

Ben mulled that over. “No, Rey, it’s _symbolism_. His love for Phoebe is also his love for himself.”

“So it _is_ narcissism,” she said.

“No it’s _symbolism_,” he insisted, “and it’s real. Holden accuses the rest of the world of being ‘phoney’, so his feelings for Phoebe are the only genuine connection that he has.”

“If you say so, Ben,” she muttered, sounding unconvinced. “I guess my essay can be about Holden’s relationship with women? His crush, the prostitute, and Phoebe?”

So clinical. “Yeah, if you want.”

She brightened. “Thanks, Ben.” She leaned over and pressed her mouth to his cheek, before clambering up. “I’ll go wash up now for bed — oh, hi, Kylo! Your food is on the stove.” She brushed past her brother in the hallway.

Kylo wandered into the living room, his gaze aimed squarely after her, before turning to Ben. “Evening,” Kylo said, before tipping the beer can in his hand to his mouth.

“Hey,” Ben said. He set down the book beside him and crossed his legs, taking up the whole of the seat. “So Kes informed me today that you didn’t come back after lunch.” He threw his hands in the air. “Where’d you go?”

Kylo rolled his shoulders, and he raised a hand to scratch lazily behind his ear. After a while, Ben cleared his throat, and shook his head. So be it; another mouth to feed. Summer was a year away, but hopefully by then the economy would’ve improved enough for Kylo to leave, or he could pick tomatoes down South. This wasn’t Ben being callous; it would be great if Kylo could visit for Thanksgiving or Christmas.

“Do you know she’s fucking the Dameron boy?”

“What?” croaked Ben.

Kylo took another swig of his drink first. “The half-Mexican boy,” he said, and he raised his hand up and down to approximate the boy’s height. While Ben swallowed this, Kylo asked, “Was that the deal? You give him Rey, so you get a paycheck?”

“_Poe_?” spat Ben. “She’s not fucking _Poe_. How would you even know such a thing?”

“Where did you think I went?” asked Kylo. “I tell you what, that Shara can talk up a storm.”

Ben paled. He sat up from his seat and watched as his fist wrapped around the collar of Kylo’s shirt. Kylo glanced down like he found a stain on his clothing. “I’m sorry, did _you_ call dibs on that woman?” Kylo asked, “because I think I had to take a timecard.” Ben clenched his other hand into a fist and whipped it across his face.

Kylo staggered back and stumbled into the coffee table, knocking his calves. The can had fallen from his hand, and now it vomited its contents onto the hardwood floor and soaked Leia’s handwoven Alderaanian throw rug.

“Now what did you two break _now_?” cried the girl. She wandered into the living room with her hair down, in her nightrobe, when she saw Kylo laid out on the floor. She cried out, then knelt to help the man sit up so his neck rest on the sofa. “Stay there, I’ll get ice,” she murmured. She turned to Ben, her brow knitted, mouth twisted in a contemptuous frown. “_You get out_.”

There came that strange pain in his chest again. He faltered. Kylo watched her from behind her hip, his eyes crinkled. 

“Benjamin Solo, _now_!” snapped Rey. 

— _I was defending your honor_, Ben thought, but his jaw ground together. He had the urge to just pick up his sister and store her away before he could throw hands with his own brother, but he turned and made his way to the bathroom. It smelled like her, all flowery and safe, but there lay Kylo’s toothbrush and his daily shaving apparatus by the sink and it only pumped violence through his bloodstream. He slammed the door shut behind him and drove his fist into the yellowing mirror, over and over and over.

. 

Rey won’t speak to him in the morning, just laid breakfast out in front of him. 

He said he was sorry.

He doesn’t know what got into him.

She made a cursory inspection of his bandaged fist, holding it in her small hands, but she wouldn’t look at him. He looked at her. 

His sister had done her hair up into two buns, and she wore a light pink dress tied with a ribbon around her waist. The neckline revealed the curve of her sternum. Her lower lip glistened pink in the kitchen light, and her complexion looked pasty because Leia never got to show her how to paint herself. No jeans, no hasty ponytail; flats instead of sneakers. Did she smell a little sweeter? 

She stepped away from him, grimacing. “Kylo?” she cooed. “Kylo, since Ben ruined his hand, do you think you’re okay enough to take me to school? Then take Ben to work, or don’t.”

Kylo looked up from the paper and pushed egg into his mouth with two fingers. His left cheek had turned a little blue, but the swelling had gone down. “Okay, but you’ll owe me, rabbit,” he hummed.

“Sure thing,” Rey agreed. As she walked past him, she kissed the side of his head and moved to go get her things. 

Kylo glanced at him and winked.

.

Kylo took him to work at around six pm. “Sure we shouldn’t check Rose’s house first?” Kylo said. The headlights cut a beam through the road in front of them, and nothing more. “What if she’s heading back right now, and we meet her on the road? At the rate we’re going now, we’d drive them into a ditch.”

“Kylo will you shut your mouth,” Ben spat out.

Kylo nodded. “Yessir,” he said.

_Smartass_. For now, he and his brother had a truce. If what he said were true, then Rey had lied to both of them, and that wouldn’t hold. If what he said were false, then Ben would evict his lying weasel brother. 

Bitterly, what came to mind was the last time he and Kylo had bonded: over their mutual hatred of Han Solo. It seemed that only by cannibalizing each other did the Skywalkers come together. Luke and Leia found each other by hunting down Grampa, after all. 

The car pulled up the driveway of the Dameron household, and all retrospection stops. Ben awkwardly reached over to open his car door, before stepping out. “_Kes_!?” His voice sounded muted in his own ears, like the night was something thick and cottony surrounding him. He went up to the door and slammed his good fist into the door. “Kes, open up! It’s me!”

There were muffled voices inside, and the door swung open to reveal Kes: a tall, salt-and-pepper haired man, shorter than Ben. The old man stared up at him, his face twisted in confusion. “Ben? What the hell are you doing here?” he said.

“Is Rey here?” asked Ben.

“What is wrong with you, what happened to your hand?” Kes demanded. Behind him, Shera glanced curiously out at the commotion, one hand over her mouth. 

“Where’s your son, Kes?”

“What business is it of yours?”

“Is Rey with him?”

“I don’t know where your girl is, but you need to get the hell out of here before I call the police!” Kes snapped, his voice thick with emotion. It didn’t sound so scary now, outside of work.

Ben shouldered past him, crying her name. He went past the living room, the kitchen, and then to a door which he shouldered open. A terrified boy in his pajamas leaped out of his bed, spitting out profanities in Spanish. Ben knew he was being called a bitch, but he could smell _her_ and that took up the forefront of his attention. He shoved opened his closet and rummaged inside, finding it empty Then he crouched down before the bed and lifted the sheets to see a pink, terrified face staring back at him from underneath. At once, he reached down and grabbed her, yanking her out by her wrist.

Poe made an attempt to defend his woman by running at Ben, but he raised his elbow and shoved the boy’s neck into the wall. Ben dragged his sister past the living room, and out of the house. Kes, red-faced, screamed after them never to come back, Benjamin Solo, you crazy, two-faced son of a bitch.

He threw his sister into the back of the car and got in next to Kylo. The car slipped out of the driveway, and pulled back onto the road. 

Rey’s sniffling filled the interior, before she worked her voice enough to whine, “Are you two _insane_?” A minute passed. “Well answer me, somebody!” The grief and hysterical music in her voice bounced around the confines of the car. “Ben I can understand, but _you_, Kylo?”

“_Quiet_, _Rey_,” snapped Ben. “You have a lot to answer for tonight. Take this moment to think about what you did.” 

“What did I _do_?” whined Rey.

“You _lied_ to me,” said Ben, and he turned around in his seat to meet her bright and glistening eyes. “You were not at Rose’s house; I did not give permission for you to go to _Dameron’s_ house.”

“It happened along the way!” She declared it as though she were speaking to an idiot. “Poe and I were at Rose’s house, when he offered to drive me home, and along the way he invited me to dinner!”

“Really. Is that what happened.”

“Yes!” 

“That seems like an awfully inconvenient drive for Dameron,” Ben pondered.

“Well its the _fucking truth_!” she roared. “I can’t believe — you just lost your fucking job, Benjamin Solo! And how am I ever gonna show my face at school tomorrow!?”

“Don’t you cuss at me, Rey,” Ben warned.

The sniffling halted. “What, Ben? ‘Fucking’?” she asked, dumb-founded.

“Rey I am _not_ in the mood,” he said. A tic pulsed in the side of his neck, so he turned back around to face the _calming_ beam of light over the road. “Kindly shut your trap. I’m done for tonight with you.”

“But it’s the most natural thing in the world,” she said, “‘_fucking_’.”

There came that pain inside his chest, only it was the worst than before. Like a screaming, tearing pain that made him want to rip off his skin and plunge his fingers into the tendon of his arm. The words come out before he could think on them, “Did you fuck Poe?”

There was no reply from the back, so he turned around to see her watching him, her eyes reflecting the headlights. “Did you fuck Poe?” he asked again.

“I’ll only ask this one more time,” he pleaded, “Reynabel Solo. I love you more than you could ever know now, so when you test me it is an act of violence and I will respond in kind. One word answer: Did. You. Fuck. Poe.” 

She mulled this over for a moment, her eyes taking in his expression. Then, she rolled her shoulders. Then, she looked down at her nails.

“REY!”

“_Yeah_!” she screamed. “_Yeah, I fucked Poe Fucking Dameron_! He’s hung like a _fucking_ horse!”

His heart fell into his stomach.

“His cock is bigger than the two of you put end-to-fucking-end!” she screamed. “You wanna know where he put it, Ben?! Do you wanna fucking know, you bitch!?”

Tears fell from Benjamin’s eyes, as the crest of what he was feeling breached over the flood-wall. 

Her little life flashed before his eyes so fast that he immediately forgot it once it left. Precious memories discarded before the road. He gripped his brother’s arm and said, “Kylo, stop the car.” Kylo couldn’t have heard over the vile din their sister was making, but one look and he simply understood. The car pulled over to the side of the road; he cut the engine, but not the lights.

“Get out,” Ben demanded. When she didn’t, he got out of the car, opened her door, and yanked her out by her dress. He pushed her to the front of the car and shoved her onto the hood of the car while she was still stunned by the headlights. With his good hand, he awkwardly undid his belt, while hiking up her dress with his bandaged hand. 

Her sweet, bubble-bottom greeted him. She’d gotten a hold of some thin, black lingerie that hugged her lithe waist, and the sight of it suddenly made him _hard_, and hateful because that bitch Poe had seen this, had cum because of this and made her dirty, and she did this to _him_, to hurt _him_ after everything _he’d_ done for her. 

He aimed his blows over the back of her thighs, but he was blinded by red from gazing into the headlights.

Rey squeaked the first time, then went stubbornly, brutally silent.

All that existed was the task, the swinging of his arm. He couldn’t hear anything except for the blood rushing in his ears, until a hand settled on his shoulders. A man’s voice seeped into his consciousness, “... n, stop. You’re gonna cripple her at this rate.”

His arm fell to his side. Strips of red criss-crossed the back of her white thighs. Holes in her panties exposed the skin of her bottom. She was so still, her hands clutched in front of her.

Terror gripped him. “Rey!?” he said. He took a step towards her, then faltered at a strange sensation, and he looked down to see the tent in his pants. Bile rose at the back of his throat and the road, the car, her body all wavered and blurred.

When he came to, Chewie’s old blanket was draped over him. His mouth tasted sour, and swallowing filled his throat with glass. It was dark; he sat up, slowly, and the back of his head hurt. There was a tension in the nodes of his neck, which meant he’d had a nightmare that he couldn’t remember.

He stood up to go to the bathroom, when he caught sight of Rey’s closed door.

At once, everything flowed into him. All of it, so that he could’ve drowned. Ben choked on the weight of his emotion, before releasing it in a low, hurt sound. Tears fell from his eyes, and his mouth twisted into a thin line. 

Was she in there? He swayed on unsteady feet; he wanted to go, but something rooted him in place. No, but Rey needed him; the poor thing must be hurting so bad. She needed bacitracin ointment, and rubbing alcohol, thick cloth bandages, and and a sponge bath like when she caught the stomach flu, and

_Ben_, “_Ben_,” came a voice in the dark. Ben turned and saw his shadow, closing the front door softly behind him. “...What are you doing?” he asked, stepping softly so as not to make sound on the floorboards.

Ben sniffled, and tried and tried to form the words in his mouth. “I I wa sjust, checking on her,” he said, his voice rasping against sandpaper. “Is she okay? Did she wake up?”

His brother watched him in silence, before giving a curt nod. He stopped just between Benjamin and Rey’s door. 

Ben breathed a sigh of relief. “Can - can I see her? I won’t wake her, honest.”

His brother tipped his head. In the dark he could barely make out expression, but he recognized Mama in that one thing, that disappointment. “... No, Kylo,” he said, “I don’t think I can let you do that.”

The air left Benjamin’s lungs.

“Do you remember what happened..?” Kylo went on, “when you stopped, you... lost your head,” he said, careful with his next words. “I don’t know what your intention was — maybe there wasn’t any intention at all — but, it looked, to me, like you tried to... _mount_, her.”

It took a few times, but Kylo spilled it out. When Kylo stopped him, Benjamin had dropped his belt to the side. He was in some sort of deaf, dumb state. He tugged down his trousers, before making a mad dash to her. Benjamin had grabbed the girl by the waist and began humping her like a wild animal. 

As he envisioned the image, the instrument in question stirred beneath his trousers. Benjamin was seized by the urge to cut it off himself like a tumorous growth.

His life flashed before his eyes. Just yesterday she was his little girl; he would give anything to return to that. In a little over a day, he destroyed it all. Benjamin looked at the door from over his brother’s shoulder, and it sank in that he would never go back in there, that he would never wander in after dark and touch her face, that she would never curl up against him on the big chair again.

He felt empty inside. Benjamin wandered over to the living room. He looked at his shelf of old, nothing books about men long dead and he wondered where it all went wrong. Had this propensity always been inside of him? Mama said that Ben was the good son, but Mama was gone.

Consumed by his thoughts, he didn’t sense his brother before him until a wide hand settled on his shoulder. Kylo opened his arms, and Benjamin sank into his brother’s embrace. Bewilderment succumbed to grief, and he pressed his face into the curve of his neck. His brother smoothed his palm over his back, and just like that, Benjamin shuddered, and began to weep.

“Hush now,” Kylo said. “You were just a little rough on the rabbit. A little capital punishment is good for the soul now and then. You don’t know it, but I do, and Rey’s gonna come out of this stronger”

“Nothing is wrong with you, Ben,” he said. “Nothing at all.”


	4. About the Economy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry it took this long; there's really no excuse. The thing is that I write in cycles - Beg, Rising action, Climax, and Fall - but I stalled on the second cycle. I think I got it back this time with the help of VC Andrews.

The sun still rose against the yellowed little window inside of Benjamin’s office. Benjamin lost interest in his account book and just stared at that square of light. The bodies of desiccated flies sunned themselves on the dusty sill. He thought of nothing and for a moment, this was the only peace that he knew and would know.

He braced his hand against his desk and pushed himself up, before pulling open the office door. He looked out into the hall.

Her door was closed. 

So Ben walked with lurching steps towards the kitchen, where he could make something easy to eat. He took one glance around the darkened kitchen, and saw three oil-spattered skillets on the stove and the sink filled with a collection of dishes. He stood there for a moment, before walking to the sink. Rey’s gloves were too small for him, so instead he did everything bare-handed, scrubbing the dishes underneath a stream of cold water. Interestingly enough, some of these plates looked a _lot_ like Leia’s good Alderaanian china, the ones she kept in the display cabinet. 

A noise alerted him to his brother walking in.

Kylo swung his arms back and forth, his eyes trained solely on the fridge. His hair was a mess. Ben noted silently that Kylo has since been wearing the same wifebeater to bed since last month. Without missing a beat, Kylo opened his fat mouth and cried, “mornin’, Mama.”

Ben blew air out of his mouth in annoyance, the plates clinking in his hands. “You know. It would help me if you could soak the skillet the night before,” Ben said. “That way, I can scrape off all this burnt crap around the edges. Just a suggestion.”

“Yes, Mama,” said Kylo. He pulled open the fridge door, pondered its contents. After some careful perusal, he declared, “We have _jack_ and _shit_ to eat in this house.”

Ben placed the last plate onto the drying rack, before turning off the sink and drying his hands. “We have plenty to eat, you just need to cook it first.” Ben stood behind his brother and his brother moved away to reveal a _semi_-depleted fridge. 

Ben pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and noted what was there, gone, and new. There was a cabbage that _she_ would usually stretch to make a stew. Eggs and milk were out. As for what was new... — _Useless lush_. Ben took the beer from the six-pack at the bottom of the fridge and handed it off to Kylo. “Ever heard of a wet lunch? Have a wet breakfast.”

As Ben stalked off, Kylo made a disgusted noise in his throat and closed the fridge, while keeping his drink in hand. “I guess I’ll just ask Rey about whipping up some biscuits,” he sighed.

Pain bloomed in Benjamin’s chest. “Don’t you ask her about anything,” snapped Ben, his throat tightening.

“I meant that she could tell _me_ how to do it, stupid.”

Ben went on, “I don’t believe this — you whine about not having eggs to scramble no more, no more _bacon_ to _incinerate_, but god forbid you’re dry for one night. And put that drink down, I was joking.”

Kylo placed the lip of the bottle on the counter’s edge and gave it a smack — dislodging the aluminum cap. He took a drink.

Ben shook his head in disgust. “Oh, _Han_ would be _proud_,” he cooed, crossing his arms over his chest. 

Kylo cleared his throat, and stared at Ben. The easy mirth had drained from his face. “Watch it,” he warned in a low voice.

“Look, Kylo,” said Ben, “don’t forget but you’re living in _our_ _house_, and we don’t have much, especially not now and not in _this_ economy. I had hoped we’d get through this, because we have _land_, but since we’re both unemployed—.”

“I’m not unemployed,” said Kylo.

“What?”

“I’m on something of a _paid_ _leave_. Don’t you start projecting your little issues on me; I have _assets_, I have _liquidity_. Jesus. Why’re you crawling up my ass on this fine morning? I don’t go off on _your_ shortcomings.”

Ben recoiled as If slapped. — My_ shortcomings? _Ben was the good son, Ben stayed in school because Mama wanted it even though he hated the bullying, Ben stayed when everybody else left so that Rey wouldn’t be a ward of the state. Everything he did was for _somebody else, _for _her_. And now this, this drunk uppity _sonbitch_ —

Kylo noted his silence. He raised a hand and smoothed over his cheek, over the faded bruise left there. A pensive look in Kylo’s eye, he asked, “When was the last time you had sex?”

Ben paled. He looked towards the direction of his sister’s room.

Kylo followed his gaze, and smiled. “C’mon,” said Kylo, toasting him his bottle. “When’s the last time you got your rocks off?”

He couldn’t let Rey hear this pig-disgusting shit, not in their own home. It was talk like _this_ that had corrupted her: talk in the school and on the news and in Leia’s disgusting harlequin novels, talk out of Han’s mouth and now Kylo’s, talk that made Benjamin do the thing he did. Ben gripped Kylo’s wrist, and then tore out of the house. His brother stumbled on the wooden steps and cussed behind him.

It was cold outside.

“The fuck is your problem?” snapped Kylo. The cold absorbed his voice and made it sound like he was standing far off and yelling. Good.

“I have plenty of it,” said Ben, except his voice dropped in volume at the last word.

“You coulda said- you coulda _lied_ to me _indoors_,” said Kylo.

Ben narrowed his eyes. “I have _plenty_. But don’t you dare bring that up again in the house.”

Kylo’s brow furrowed, and his mouth dropped open. “Ho-lee _shit_,” he said, his voice raising a pitch.

A cold wind brushed past the land and swept over their heads and made the shingles on the roof shudder.

“How often?”

Ben rubbed at the chill on his neck, but it brought no warmth.

“C’mon,” said Kylo.

“Enough. I’m goin back inside.”

But Kylo stepped in his way. “I’m not gonna bully ya, Ben. We’re grown. Those days are done.” 

— _Bullshit_.

When Ben didn’t say anything, Kylo went on: “You were always gonna go Mama’s way.”

— _Oh here it comes_. Ben raised his head and his lip curled, ready to defend his honor, his manhood, the thing between his legs. 

Kylo said, “I left, because I knew you would stay. For the girlssakes. And I suspect the hormonal balance shifted.” 

— _What_? 

“You became man of the house, but you had Mama, and little Rey to look after. They — well, the _rabbit_, was all you had. And you love her, but she’s _different_ from you, easier than you and I and Han and Mama. Those natural urges —.”

“Oh god,” said Ben, with the horror dawning.

“Those perfectly, natural male urges—. 

“I don’t need this,” snapped Ben and he tried to block his ears with his hands but Kylo grabbed his wrists and he couldn’t pull away.

“Those _male urges_ suddenly feel _disgusting_ when you’re alone — **alone**, in your house, with your baby sister curled up against your side, don’t it?” said Kylo, his eyes dark. 

Benjamin’s stomach turned and it turned inside of him, like a restless sleeper trapped in a nightmare. 

“The _little baby rabbit_,” Kylo insisted, his low and smooth voice invoking the devil tempting the sinner.

To Kylo there came an unbidden memory (or rather an amalgamation of memory): her sweet, rosy face near inches from his, the brush of her lips or her skin on his skin, the _sudden_ and _shameful_ hard-on inside his jeans, the white-hot _terror _and the dark red _ache _that she must never, _ever see_. His eyes itched and when he wiped at them, his hand came away wet. 

“It’s okay,” said Kylo. He gripped his brother’s shoulder, then rubbed his back in reassuring circles. “It’s really okay, Ben. She is just _too_ pretty, isn’t she?” And there was an undetected sigh in his voice. 

“I’m not - I don’t,” went Benjamin’s mouth. He formed a grin and shook his head, these half-formed thoughts lodging in his throat. His face stung in the cold wind. Ben could talk about many things if Rey asked, but didn’t talk about these things. It weren’t proper.

“I think,” said Kylo, “What you need, what you’ve _been_ needing is regular release.”

“No,” said Ben.

Kylo abruptly turned and went inside the house. Ben stayed out there, not feeling the cold, only that his face burned, when Kylo returned with a card in-hand. It was a small card, coffee-colored and softened at the edges as if passed through many hands. The font read The Takodana Club. When Ben blinked, he could make out a penned loop of thin numbers with a heart at the end. 

  
  


Ben pushed away the card, but Kylo insistently waved it before his eyes. “I’m not going to your whorehouse,” Ben snapped, horrified.

  
  


“It’s not-! It’s just a fine little club I found,” Kylo offered. “The girls that you so happen to find there will treat you right! Ask for Miss Maz and pretend you’re some asshole named ‘Kylo’. I hear you kinda look alike.” After a moment’s thought, he explained: “Ditch the glasses in the car. Don’t touch Miss Maz; you can flirt, but don’t let it go beyond that. And when that naggy little voice in your head tells you to do something, just do the opposite!”

  
  


“I don’t - don’t have the time.”

  
  


“Got plenty of time now.”

  
  


“Oh are these _free whores_, Kylo Ren?” snapped Ben. “Are these whores workin for _charity_, out of the _goodness_ of their Christian hearts?”

  
  


“For fuckssakes. It’s on me!” Kylo snapped, irritated. “Look. Why in the hell do you think you did what you did, Benjamin? Answer me!” 

  
  


Benjamin could not answer. 

  
  


“Rey can go just one night without you; I’ve got her!” Kylo promised. “She’s _mine too_, Benjamin!”


	5. (Un)like Other Girls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Rise of tghe Fifth!! The First Order did nothing wrong!!!
> 
> Somebody very helpful in Chapter 1 said to add this to the Breylo tag, which I will do when I rember how to add tags.  
Thank u for readin ~ the attraction to writing this is making Full-Goblin Kylo Ren

— _Why can’t I stop crying?_ she thought.

It was easier to lay on her stomach at first, until she woke up with her face smothered against her wet, musty pillow in the dark. So now she lay on her back and gazed at the grey ceiling, her eyes unseeing. 

Laying on her back sent a deep ache to the back of her thighs, but it did relieve the roiling in her gut. Benjamin had been getting the hang of lunches lately; he couldn’t cook a smooth pancake if it killed him, but he was very good at sandwiches. Hell, she wished he would do a little more cooking sometimes, say on the weekends; he was better than he let himself believe. But he was always so tired... And again the tears came.

This time it was accompanied by a wrenching pain in her chest. Her breathing came in short gasps. A fist closed around her heart.

— _Don’t think of him, god almighty you’re not strong enough_, she thought.

The worst part? Poe Dameron was only supposed to be a _fling_. Less than a boyfriend, just a little fun. Kaydel and Bazine made it known that Rey and Rose had never been _kissed_ before, let alone laid with a man. So Rey called them sluts and then Bazine called them dykes. It was better to be a slut than a homosexual in those times in this country. The rumor spread.

The truth was, asides from Finn, Rose, and Poe, she hated that school. But Leia forced her to go and embedded the habit by telling her that if she didn’t, she’d end up dropping out of high school, marrying some deadbeat, and pumping out his baby once a year, all before the age of twenty. There were girls like that in spades. Once a week their husband would raise a hand to them and they’d think they deserved it.

‘_Just like Mama_’, Leia would moan, and behind her in the backseat was a ten year old Rey. ‘_I had a Masters in Law until Han stuck it in me_!’

Except Leia was different from all the other mothers Rey had ever seen, the ones that would come to pickup their kids from school. Leia was stick thin, and had not the soft curves or pear-shape that most other women had. Leia dressed sharper because she had a job at an insurance claims office. A suit and pencil skirt, five days a week! And Leia wore her hair up in braids like a crown instead of down or in a simple ponytail. Kids at school said Rey’s Mama put on airs, that she ruined Han Solo and chased him off, that she thought she was too good for this county. Mama just said to ignore them, up until Mama wasn’t there to say to ignore them no more...

Ben said that those kids were jealous, called them all white trash. 

Ben said that their family came from the Old Country, that long ago Mama was a princess and now Rey was a princess, too. Ben said their genius Granddaddy rose up from slave to general and that he married a real pretty Queen. Ben said all of their family’s money was lost after the second World War during the trials after... And Ben said that none of that held a grain of salt; even if they had no castle and no crowns, she was _his_ princess.

“_Oh_,” Rey whimpered, biting her bottom lip. A fat tear rolled down her eye. She couldn’t blot out his face this time, the sound of his sweet voice in her ears. He was so easy to love, but could what he had done be forgiven? 

— _Why did he have to act like that_? she wondered. The pain was so great, that she turned in bed, curling herself into a ball. For her entire life, there wasn’t a mean bone in his body. There wasn’t any other man she’d ever met like Ben, one so smart and soft-spoken, so hardworking and considerate... Was it something she’d done? She’d spent so many days hating him to fearing him, and all the while she wondered why he wouldn’t come in himself, what he was doing out there or if he were in his room laying awake. She wondered if he still hated her now, for lying to him...

With a creak, the door slid open. The girl raised her head a fraction to look at the threshold.

A long, familiar face peered inside. A pair of rimmed glasses sat high on the bridge of his nose. Her veins froze over. In the span of a second she took in the color of his face, the flush across his cheeks, his slightly parted lips. The door opened further.

He was wearing a wifebeater, slightly yellowed around the armpits.

Rey blinked. She sat up in bed, and pressed her hands to her heated face.

He sniffled, then walked over to her bedside. “Rabbit,” he said softly, “it’s cold outside.” 

Her hands slid down her drawn face. He stared at her as though his was a problem that she was supposed to address. “Why don’t you put on a sweater?” she suggested cooly.

He raised the covers and slipped his hands beneath. 

Cold fingers grazed her skin. “Kylo!” she snapped, pushing his hand away. 

“Warm me up,” he said in his strange voice. 

He pulled up the covers where Rey’s decency was barely preserved by a long, long men’s shirt the shade of a robin’s egg. Rey yelped and smacked at his hands, and they struggled briefly over possession of the blanket. Then he took a step back, and like a magician he yanked the sheets straight off. 

“_Kylo Ren Solo_!” she cried shrilly. (Mama used to invoke his full government name to try to leash him.) Rey sat herself up in bed on goosepimpled arms and legs and raised a finger to him. “I will not play these games! Give me back the blanket!”

She was starting to vaguely realize why Han was always so mad all the time. Kylo flourished the quilted blanket before him like a matador before the bull, before swinging it behind him and fashioning it into a sort of thick and flowery cloak that ended just before his knees. He opened the door again and stepped out. 

Rey cussed him and called him some very bad names underneath her breath. Her feet touched the cold, hard floorboards before they found her bunny slippers. She didn’t see why this would be a long journey, so she ignored the itchy sweater left waiting on the dresser nearby and pulled open her door with the intent to get her blanket back. 

“Kylo!” she cried.

“In here,” went his voice. Rey followed, crossing her arms over her hard nipples.

“Wha-.” He was inside of the office. He sat in the wooden chair with his feet kicked up, the soles of his boots resting on the workbench that served as Benjamin’s desk. Kylo pushed that pair of glasses up the bridge of his nose, and in his hand was Benjamin’s black account book. The blanket was still wrapped tightly around him.

Rey stood at the threshold. Her scalp itched; she raised a hand and absently threaded it beneath her bird’s nest of hair. 

“The hell are you doing?” she wondered aloud. Then, quickly, she glanced down the hall, out the living room, and listened for any stray sounds from inside and outside the house. The interior of the house had darkened as evening settled in. Ben was out? At this hour? Where was he? Was he looking for a job?

“While you’re up,” Kylo said, now looking at her, “could you get to making us supper, sweetheart?”

“I-.” Anxiously, she crossed her arms and tucked them beneath her armpits. 

“Dumplings and gravy? I promise I’ll bring home a fat chicken for you someday, but I’ll eat like a rabbit with you if you could put it in a dumpling.”

“He said he might be late tonight,” Kylo said reassuringly. He tossed the book down on the desk, and slid his boots to the floor. 

“Where did he go?” Rey blurted out, her throat tightening at even _referring_ to _Benjamin. _She was disgusted with herself.

“He went to Kes’s place,” said Kylo.

Rey moaned and placed her hands over her mouth. 

“He wanted — he thought, if he explained himself, he could get his old job back.”

He shouldn’t have to. Rey shook her head, imagining her brother standing before old Kes, his head bowed, his hands clasped as he begged for a job that he was way too good for. They were supposed to be, what? Princes and princesses? She would pawn off all of Mama’s traditional Alderaanian crafts, were that scumbag _Plutt_ to offer a fair price, if it could only let Benjamin go to college _without taking him away from her_. 

Rey was never going back to school. Even if Poe were good enough to keep ‘the event’ quiet, his father and mother sure wouldn’t; and the other ranch-hands had about twenty kids at school between them. And Rey hated sitting in a desk all day and she hated reading, no matter how much literacy Leia and Benjamin tried to pass onto her. Mama might say that now the only path left open to a woman was to pump out babies, but the only man in Rey’s life was her brother.

“Sh sh sh,” he blew through pursed lips. 

Kylo shook open the blanket behind her, and then wrapped it around her. The bottom swept against the floor; he tucked this makeshift cloak against her chest, until she held it in place with her hand. “Lookin at you, you would think you were the saddest little rabbit there ever was,” he said, smoothing his palms over her shoulder. He pulled her to his chest, his body hot against her forehead. He tucked his head over her right shoulder.

One of his hand slid down her back. Rey choked as he gently pressed her bottom, and then tensed when he rubbed the place where Benjamin...

“Does it still hurt?” he asked. It was strange, but because his mouth was behind her it sounded like he was standing far away. 

“... No,” she said.

“... I’m sorry,” he said, softly. He tilted his head, and in doing so rubbed his stubbly jaw against her cheek. He nuzzled her hair, and Rey caught herself leaning into his embrace.

She slipped out of his grasp, pulling her blanket tighter around her.

The look on his face, the glasses, the longer hair, the days-old shirt he slept in. For a moment Rey was afraid, because she wasn’t sure who this man was, and she was seized by the terrifying thought that she was talking to some chimera of both her brothers Benjamin and Kylo and that this was a walking nightmare wherein at any moment he would smile at her except his teeth would be too long. 

The Kylo-Ben regarded her a moment, before reaching up to his face and sliding off the pair of glasses. He held them out to her, and winked.

They had a thin, rounded frame. Rey took them in her fingers, frowning to herself. The color of the frames was lighter than Benjamin’s dark ones. She turned them in her hands, careful of the glass. The nosepads were awfully clean, in fact _too_ clean...

“... These are _Mama’s_!” she cried, scandalized. Mama had hated her glasses, said they made her look like a librarian. Rey turned to her brother, who had placed his boots back onto the desk, smiling his Cheshire smile. “Who gave you the right! You are a _nuisance_, Kylo Solo!”

“You love me,” he drawled. 

“I do not!” she retorted. 

“‘Sides, Mama’s not using them.”

“That’s not the point, Kylo! You shouldn’t have touched these! I’m - I’m telling Ben!” When he got back, she would tell him, over dinner. And this time the thought did not turn her stomach. Maybe they could at least begin to talk.

She was feeling very hot inside of her blanket, so she returned to her room and threw the blanket onto the bed, and placed the itchy sweater on. When she walked past the office again, the man of the house cried _dumplings_ after her like she was the waitress of this establishment.

So she spun on her heels and returned to the office door, and said, “Kylo Ren we both know you will eat whatever the hell I set down in front of you.”

“That’s fair I guess,” Kylo agreed after some thought, nodding. He was looking at the account book again.

“But if you have a request you must say ‘please’,” Rey said.

“Please,” he said. “You’re the greatest cook there’eva was, Miss Rey, and also the prettiest.”

Rey regarded him with a critical eye, before conceding with a _well alright_. Still she lingered, in the threshold.

With a smile on his face, Kylo said, “... If ya keep standin there like that, I’m gonna kiss ya.” 

She did not move.

“Three.” He raised his shoes from off the desk and set his feet down noiselessly.

“_Two_.” He tossed the account book down on the desk. He leaped from the seat.

Rey took off. 

“_**TOO LATE!**_” he screamed, tearing after her. “_**TOO LATE, RABBIT!**_” he laughed, tearing after her into the dark.


	6. You See it Every Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. While Rey and Thing No 2 have a Talk,  
I'm gonna try to do some editing magic.  
Maybe doing a page break
> 
> per every line was not a cool and sexy idea.  
I'm really sorry if that has bothered anybody, bc it did bother me when I finally discovered why my fics looked sparser everybody else's. ;x;

In the black vault of the sky there burned cold stars in their multitudes. The darkness erased the road, the car, the distant hills and what sparse remainders of life and civilization there was in this empty plain. As if a gentle apocalypse had unmade everything outside of the house. So it could be understood, that at night only the girl and her brother were what was left of existence, and this was the way it had always been and the way it should be. 

And it was strange, now, that this was wrong.

Footsteps creaked on the porch behind her. He (the shadow of her brother) tried to coax her back inside with soft words back into the house. It didn’t work. The tv in the living room flipped on and for a little while there was the thickly muttered sounds of the newscaster, and then the hiss of static. Then quiet again. 

“Ain’t you cold, little girl?” he called from inside the house. “Hey.”

Heavy footsteps paced across wooden floorboards, in, then out. 

The blanket fell across her thin shoulders, and fell over her knees. He set his drink a careful distance away. Then, he hunched over her, forming in his estimates a sort of cocoon with only her narrow face exposed. When he was satisfied, he sat down on the stoop beside her. He threw back his head and placed his hands behind him, leaning back to better admire the perfect darkness outside. 

“Forgot how pretty it was out here,” he said. At her behest, he had chosen a different and cleaner outfit: one of Benjamin’s flannels unbuttoned, and his better pair of jeans. 

Rey turned to him, warily. If anything, the last few weeks had condensed into the past few hours, to show that Kylo was a different animal compared to Benjamin, or whatever the hell Benjamin was. Kylo liked his games. He liked to run and he liked to chase and he liked to wrestle. 

“Aren’t you cold?” she asked.

“Boys don’t get cold,” he answered matter-of-factly.

Kylo tilted his head. Above their heads hung an electric porch light, which bleached his face paper-white. He took a drink from his bottle, and turned back to her.

“Want some?” he said. He held the open mouth of the bottle to her. Rey shook her head, but he proffered it closer until a bitter scent reached her nose. “It’ll warm you right up.”

She raised her head until he placed the bottle against her bottom lip and tilted it upwards, giving her a sip. It burned in her mouth, and burned on the way down. 

Kylo smiled and laughed, a small sound from his chest. “You need a taste for it,” he explained. 

She coughed to clear her throat. 

“You need the taste for it; it’ll warm you up.”

“I have the taste,” she croaked, shaking her head. “Thanks. You can go on back inside, Kylo.” When Kylo didn’t move, she said, “I’m not going to get any sleep until I know he’s home.”

“Now hold on,” he said, sitting up and staring at her. “He’s my brother, too.” Then he said, “You should be the one in bed, Rey.”

They sat in a companionable silence. Kylo shared little sips from the bottle with her and it helped to draw her head away from the creeping chill in her fingers. Her eyelids grew heavy.

“Go to bed,” he repeated.

Blinked herself awake. No. She shook her head from out of the warm burrow of blanket.

He rest his elbow on his knee, and had the weight of his head on his closed fist. He was looking at her sideways. Eyes dark, full lips in a slight pout. They said he was a handsome man, pleasing to the female eye; the girls at school had tittered about _Kylo_, how their older sisters and girl-cousins missed him _so_. _Nasty_, like cats in heat. Made her skin hot and itchy. “You oughtta listen to me, little _thing_,” he drawled. “Rey, go to bed.”

“I don’t have school tomorrow,” declared Rey. “I don’t have nothin to do tomorrow; I can sit out here til the sun rises.” To generate kinetic heat she lightly bounced the heels of her slippers against the wooden steps.

“You can’t, Rey. You won’t.”

Rey smirked. She looked to his face to see the joke but he was _always_ smiling, and anyways everything out of his fine mouth was some sort of flirtation or joke. “Gimme another drink,” she ordered.

His smile thinned, but he obliged her. Bottle contained less than she recalled; Kylo gently tipped it all down her throat, feeding her like a baby lamb. “You’re a little spoiled, ain’t you,” he noted softly, setting the empty vessel down.

It was a passing comment, but she felt offended all of a sudden. Had he not meant for her to hear? “_No_.” She shook her head, her brow furrowed. 

“Yes you are,” he insisted. “Benji just lets you walk _all_ over him.” Rey rolled her eyes but he went on: “When I was only a few years younger than you, Han would’ve beat me for using that tone of voice against him.”

“Except! You are not Han, and you are no Benjamin,” countered Rey, bemused. “I cook and I clean and I make good grades in school, Kylo. I wear the clothes that Mama left behind. I am _not_ spoiled.”

“You don’t know _discipline_, Rey.”

“Never needed it.”

“That so.”

“So.” His features took a glossy coloring; his skin glowed in the light from the lamp. Gosh was he _pretty_. He was about to say something when she blurted out, “I wish you weren’t my brother.”

He paused, blinked a couple times. “Well,” he said softly, “that just _hurts_, Rey.”

“Kylo, don’t—”

“Cuts me real deep, right here,” he raised a hand and poked his left breast pocket with his thumb.

“Don’t you go and run away for another ten years,” she huffed. “You make me go _crazy_, Kylo. With your good looks and your fancy hair and your slippery ways.”

“Think I’m gonna cry myself to sleep, too, at this rate. So why do you hate me an wish we weren’t family no more?”

“Don’t be silly. I love you and the other one of you.”

She thought that would puff him up a bit, but he only smiled wider and said, “I’ve got all night and day too, Rey.”

“Sometimes,” she drawled, “sometimes I wish I could be like the other girls.” She waited for commentary but none came. “None of them bitches in school ever stop talking about you.” Heat rose to her face but her mouth kept moving. “There’s no other boys... _men_ that I’ve ever met, like you. Wish that I could be on the outside, looking in.”

“You want to see just what those girls think is so great?”

“Oh I see it, I see it every day,” Rey sighed. She felt pleasantly warm all over. 

At the back of her head she could hear Kylo making some noise: something cute or ‘funny’ as per his nature. It felt nice to drift off. Not sleep, but to close her eyes to the harsh light. Give herself a rest. 

Something soft brushed her cheek, once, twice. A hand pulled down the blanket from her neck and released some precious heat; she swiveled her head, annoyed at whatever night insect was bothering her, when it trapped her mouth.

All warmth, all heat. Thick fingers cupped the back of her head, fisting her hair. A thrill ran down her spine and she whimpered into the other’s mouth, shifting her hips. The blanket fell lower, exposing her shoulder, the itchy wool sweater sliding sideways after stretching so many times through the laundry.

She raised a hand and placed it on his shoulder and shoved him away. Rey slid away from her brother, which was not far — trapped by the porch railing that led up the steps. She pressed her hands to her burning cheeks. A sweet-bitter taste lingered in her mouth.

His arm snaked behind her and grasped the peeling railing. Rey sucked in increasingly anxious breaths, her heart quickening beneath her ribs. He was so big and so close, his body heat radiating off him. The neckline of his shirt was open and revealed to her the fine column of his throat, then his collarbone, and then the wide chest beneath. That _thrill_ returned, like when he hugged her or had her pinned down beneath him. Reminding her that she was just an animal. She bunched her thighs tightly beneath the blanket. 

“Nobody ever taught you how to _kiss_ before?” he asked, and for the first time there was a real touch of _frustration_ in his voice. Nobody had ever looked at Rey the way he looked at her now. “Do it again, _rabbit_.”

In her head, she had no choice; _that’s_ what she’d tell herself later. So big and so close. She only had to lean in a fraction to close the distance, from herself and that fine mouth. He inhaled sharply and bucked forward like a green animal, that she grasped his face in her hands to hold him steady. 

She felt his free hand slip between the sweater and the long shirt, to gently squeeze her breast. His thumb grazed her nipple, jolting her. She broke off the kiss and gently smacked him in the jaw.

“_Ow_,” he deadpanned.

She reached down her sweater and gripped his wrist and tried to remove his hand, but he’d just reach in again or slip it in from underneath, and it tickled when he managed to get it inside the actual shirt. “Hey — _quit it_, Kylo!” she snapped. 

“My hands are cold.”

“You can’t touch me like that!”

“Why not?” he said, thrusting his bottom lip out, while thrusting his hand inside her shirt.

“It’s not right!” Rey cried. What words she had next were swallowed by a gasp. He cupped her entire breast in his cold, rough palm.

“There’s nobody here but you, or I,” he said, leaning in closer. “There ain’t no harm in _feelins, at_ least not this kind. You don’t hurt me, Rey, and you never will you’re too _sweet_.” His voice dropped lower and his pronunciation grew loopy, _strange_. His touch felt good and Rey was quickly losing her inhibitions, except the one. The greatest one.

“Benjamin‘ll—.”

“Let _me_ deal with him. He don’t need to know,” he said. 

As if Benjamin could be dismissed in five words.

Rey pulled her feet beneath her and grabbed the railing behind her. She pulled herself up and the light above them sort of spun and stung the nerves behind her eyes.

“I got you,” he said and he was behind her, grasping her waist and holding her upright holding her close. 

“M’tired,” she muttered, and all of a sudden she was aware of the great exhaustion she’d been staving off. A great film over her head that made it hard to think or even perceive. She brushed him aside and made her clumsy, perilous journey back into the darkened house, to a cold and empty bed stiff with dried tears. The front door swung shut behind her,

Kylo sat there by himself. Then he stood up, and he pulled open the door, and followed after her.


	7. Penelope

In this strange and fixed night, Benjamin slammed his foot onto the lousy brakes to stop the car, within sight of the lit porch light. Thus ended Benjamin’s first and last visit to that fine establishment _Club Takodana_ for the rest of his natural life. 

He staggered out of the car and trudged up the steps. A lifetime ago there would’ve been a very good dog by the name of Chewie to greet him, but that Argos had long since been dead and buried, and instead some thing out in the dark let out a long and high scream that sent a stab of fear into Benjamin’s chest. His hands sobered up enough to open the front door and lock it tight behind him. Goddamn... _coyotes_, he hoped.

The house was dark and still and it breathed in time with him. 

Ben navigated the parlor in total darkness. He could sense the long reclined shape of a man on the sofa. Good. Ben wondered whether his brother slept at all. He tiptoed like a tall mouse to the bathroom, rinsed and scrubbed his horsey mouth with tooth powder, avoiding his face in the ruined mirror. Out of the bathroom, he shambled on down to his room.

Down the hall, there was a sigh.

Benjamin froze. 

His nerves alighted. That sound. He knew the way his sister laughed and cried and snorted and sneezed and sighed, bored or tired, and that was _not_ the way she sighed. But that sound came from the direction of her door. He turned around slowly. Her door was closed shut. 

The walls were thin in this house. A lifetime ago, before they had a sister and they had to share the same room, the sound that woke up Ben in the night was the insistent squeal of the bedsprings in the room two doors down. It was Kylo who told him what it was: ‘_They’re fucking_,’ he said sagely. They were but seven years old. Ben could see the outline of Kylo’s teeth in the dark, as if this horrorshow revelation of their parents Leia and Han rutting like dogs in heat were something _funny_ to him.

Who was in that room _now_? Ben ground his teeth together. He needed backup. That stranger, that _man_ in there, what if he had a gun or a knife on poor Rey? Did Kylo know? Did Kylo let it happen? — _Stupid useless sonbitch_. 

Ben stalked over to the parlor and he whipped his hand across Kylo’s head. It collapsed. For a moment Ben stood there, deaf and dumb. Then he padded down the length of ‘Kylo’s’ body and realized it was a long and thick blanket, with some throw pillows underneath strewn across the sofa. 

— _Fuck oh my god_, thought Benjamin to himself. He was alone in the parlor. He felt for his glasses on his face as if to clarify to himself that he wasn’t blind, and he felt only his face. The glasses must still be in the car; — _Where is my brother?_ he thought.

He needed another sound but there was none save his own breathing. So Kylo was out, god knows where. So there _might_ be somebody in Rey’s room, but they were being awfully quiet about it. Did, did he imagine it? 

There was a gentle groan of bedsprings. Too long, too _low_ to be the little rabbit flipping over in her sleep. Ben grit his teeth.

His feet moved him towards her door. His hand gripped the handle and he turned it ever so slightly. 

Sprawled across the length of her bed was a long, ungainly form like a shadow come to life. Against him lay the rabbit, her back fitted against the hollow of his chest. His face, obscured by his long hair, hovered over hers. Previously where there was only silence, there were mutterings and catches of stray words. 

Then he stopped. He raised his head. His eyes caught some far away light and glowed in the dark. His teeth flashed. Ben took one step closer, but the other pulled the girl beneath him. She murmured in her sleep and turned over, nuzzling his chest.

Benjamin felt a stabbing beneath his rib cage. 

Kylo looked down in surprise and raised a hand to card it through her long, brown hair which fanned beneath her head. Had Rey initiated this? If Benjamin were to grab Kylo by the throat and evict him bodily out of this room, would Rey be harmed in the struggle? This was no good, no good at all. 

Benjamin hesitated. An idea occurred. Then he found the chair by the divan where first Leia and then later Rey dolled herself up, and he carried it to the front of the door. He sat himself down on it. Now he could keep an eye on that fucker.

He could feel Kylo’s eyes on him but he didn’t care. He could keep this up all night.

All night.

His eyelids felt heavy. No, but he had _all_ _day_ the next day to catch up on his beauty sleep. This was more important. Rey was important, to him. He had a duty to her. She was, the only person to ever love him. She was the only thing he had. He would do this, this one night. He could not, could not fail her. 

_All night_.

With his eyes still open, Kylo shifted his body. Gently he slid the blankets lower from off her. Rey made a small sound and tucked her head down. Kylo placed his mouth next to her ear and talked lowly. As he did so, the rest of the blankets fell away, revealing the subtle curve of her hip, tapering down to her bare thighs. He dragged up the long shirt she took from him for pajamas and he saw the shape of her round bunny butt, encompassed snugly in the white cotton triangle of her panties. 

Benjamin got real hard. He got real hard but he could not move, could not so much as twitch frozen as he was. He could not be sure if he was breathing. He watched as the other man placed his hand gently on the small of her back and she took a big breath, her face scrunched. Both brothers froze.

_Don’t_, he begged, _don’t_.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> new tags for the end of act II - im warning u here

If you were six years old in a house of at least two sixteen year old boys, you would have been the house football for some point in your life. Rey remembered being tossed between Kylo and Han, before Benjamin screamed at one of them to stop. Well she would have her revenge.

Being the earliest to fall asleep, she was the first to wake up. Her bed was a mattress on the floor of Kylo and Benjamin’s room. Han had not yet gotten around to constructing her own room — ‘Someday, kid,’ was his stock answer and he would gaze wistfully out at nothing.

Rey threw off her bedsheets and tiptoed the one foot away from Kylo’s bed. Kylo was the more entertaining to disturb because of the sheer amount of risk involved, whereas when Benjamin’s beauty rest was disturbed he was apt to whine and tattletail.

Kylo lay beneath a thin blanket and it was her intent to throw herself on top of him so that they could wrestle. Rey loved to wrestle just as much as any boy. Benjamin did not, he said it was dangerous and not ladylike.

But something was wrong. She realized there was a thin metallic sound, something like when Rey took to jumping on one of the beds. The mysterious sound came from Kylo’s bed hidden as he was beneath the blanket. His breath hitched and the thin blanket began to shudder rhythmically.

Rey was mightily confused now. She walked up to him quietly, and she reached up a hand to grab the jerking part. He flinched like he was burnt and the blanket flew up, revealing his sweat-glistened face. Hair stuck to his face, his lips blood red. His eyes had gone big and dark. 

Rey felt a pang of fear. Kylo could get scary mad sometimes but she never saw that face before. He looked half-feral. He looked like he could just bite a chunk out of her like a big ol dog. Her lower lip trembled.

After a moment, recognition softened his features and he squeezed his eyes shut. His tongue poked the insides of his cheek. It was a funny face and Rey giggled soundlessly despite herself. He opened his eyes and stared dead at her. Rey was about to go away as he would normally yell at her, but instead his hand lashed out and caught her around the tummy. He snatched her into his bed and pulled the blankets over them.

His big hands fell beneath her shirt and scuttled against her skin. Rey kicked and snickered and as she did so, she tried very very hard to be quiet. If Benjamin woke up again he would be so upset, and Kylo would get into trouble. He was getting into trouble a _lot_ lately but she didn’t know why. 

Kylo got both her wrists in his hands and pinned her down, and he was smiling and flushed in the face, and repeating _you can’t escape, you can’t get out, can’t get out_. As he spoke he peppered her face and her arms and her chest with kisses in between his ragged breaths. Rey was getting a little flustered, a little scared and she wanted out forreal, but when she said _stop it_ it seemed he did not hear her. So she kicked where Ben had told her to and he grunted at the impact. 

“_Ow_,” he croaked. He released her wrists and flopped down on the bed behind her. “_Ow_,” he whispered, “that really _hurt_, Rey.”

Her face burned and she needed to catch her breath. 

He grabbed her shoulder and shook it. “Apologize to me,” he said. “Say you’re sorry.” He pushed her onto the flat of her back and glared at her.

Rey frowned at him and wondered _how dare he_.

But he shoved her shoulder hard and said, “Say you’re sorry. Say you're sorry; you know we’re not supposed to play anymore but you do it anyway.” His breath tasted sour beneath the blankets. Rey squirmed, uncomfortable but his face was only a few inches away. “You do this to get me in trouble. You’re just like the rest of them; you _hate_ me.” 

Her brow furrowed. He wasn’t serious, was he? Han said he had Mama’s penchant for hysterics. But she looked at Kylo and he looked back at her, his long face vacant, eyes wet. “Say you’re sorry or I’m gonna run away from you and never come back,” he said.

Oh. This was never directed at her before. Rey heaved a sigh and squirmed before at last giving a muffled _I’m sorry_.

Kylo stared at her with those fathomless eyes. “I don’t think you mean it,” he deadpanned. “I don’t think you mean it at all.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. Then he said, “if you don’t say you’re _sorry_ right now, I’ll know you don’t love me. I’ll leave you and you’ll never see me again, and you can rot here with Mama and Han and stupid Benjamin who don’t love you at all.”

Rey blinked and she shrunk a little inside. “Yes they do,” she said.

But he shook his head and said, “Inside you’re just like me, and when you grow up they’ll see it, and they’ll hate you, too.” Rey blinked and her vision went stirry-blurry but he went on. “They’ll see you’re stupid an wild like me and they’ll hate you for it. Even Benjamin.”

Rey said she was sorry in earnest now. She was scared of being hated and being alone. Mama always asked why she wouldn’t act like a real girl, and Han was nicer but he wasn’t interested in anything at home either. Did Benjamin hate her? Sometimes it felt like it, why just last week he yelled at her for jumping on him too hard and he said he wished she hadn’t been born. So Rey said she was really _really_ sorry and she loved Kylo, and she did not want for him to run away, and she talked until her throat was sore and the hiccups set in.

She was terrified now. She swallowed and looked away from him, but he took her chin in his hands and tilted her face up. He wiped her tears away with his thumbs. She could see his face. Then he smiled. He kissed her brow and snaked his arms around her, before flopping his head back down beside her.

Relief seeped into Rey’s bones. 

“Did I wake you up?” he said, stroking her hair. 

Rey shook her head. 

“Did you know what I was doing?” he asked, smiling. “Do you wanna know what I was doing?” He raised a hand and pressed a long finger to his lips. “I was only a little older than you when my friend taught me how to do it. It’s perfectly natural.” One of his hands slid down her waist.

Rey followed the arc of his stray hand and saw only darkness in the space between their two bodies. Her skin crawled as he smoothed his hand over her side.

“You’re gonna have to see one when you’re a little older you’re so _pretty_,” he said, his voice going loopy and strange. “Benjamin won’t know what to do with himself I don’t think. Me I know too much.” He leaned in until their foreheads touched and he breathed slowly, gently, _It’s okay, it’s okay_. He reached down with those big hands. 

The floorboards creaked behind them. Rey tried to turn her head but Kylo smothered her mouth in his hand and he hushed her in her ear. Her eyes rolled in their sockets and the blanket covering them seemed to squeeze around them, she couldn’t get air. Kylo was too close, too close. She could sense her brother nearby, Benjamin who would save her — _should_ save her, but nothing happened no matter what little noise what little struggle she could muster. He stood there unmoving,

_It’s alrigh_t, he murmured, _it’s alright, little rabbit._

.

One eye cracked open. 

It would be one of those hot mornings in the badlands where the bedsheets stuck to her skin, limbs heavy as lead. Noise filtered into her ears. She blinked slowly, and turned her head, and she saw one man talking animatedly to another. The one standing raised his head, and the other sitting at the foot of the bed stopped talking. They both turned to look at her. Like in a nightmare they both shared the same face. They both shared the same long, pale face and dark hair: the Solo brothers.

The one on the bed smiled at her. He got on his hands and knees and crawled up the length of the mattress until he hovered over her, caging her in. The sudden movement confused her eyes and her vision swam, doubling and undoubling what she believed to be the one brother. His chest was bare, she noticed, before he plopped a wet kiss against her temple.

“G’morning, rabbit,” he hummed, pleased. “D’you miss me?” His voice was warm and low in her ear. 

“How could she miss _you_?” snipped the other who walked closer.

“I missed her wheneva I closed my eyes at night,” he replied testily. “I missed her wheneva I opened them, too.”

“Did you know, Benji,” he went on, “that Rey loves me more than she does you?”

The name helped: Kylo on top of her, Benjamin standing, okay. Benjamin narrowed his eyes (— _where are his glasses_) and he said _no_.

“She does,” Kylo insisted. “She told me so last night.”

“You’re a baldfaced liar,” snapped Benjamin except his eyes flickered to Rey’s.

“I’m her _favorite_,” Ren crooned. “I love her no matter what happens or what _has_ happened.” A muscle in his jaw tensed. His mood changed. “If you weren’t my brother, I’d have _killed_ you by now for what you done. But I’ll show you.”

Kylo retreated and plopped back down on the bed between her legs. He was a big man and his body smelled like salt. Then he placed his hands on her waist; thick fingers threaded between the band of her panties and her skin. She twitched at the contact, and got the vague sense that something was wrong but Kylo only smiled. Thoughts crawled around inside her cotton-stuffed head. “Lookit her wiggle,” he muttered. “Did you see the little wiggle?”

As he talked, those big hands slipped down her waist and then her thighs, and with them went the hot elastic band of her panties in less time than it took for you to read this sentence. Kylo turned his head and said, “Here, _pervert_.” Then he flicked his wrist and something hit Benjamin in the face.

Benjamin swiped it off his face, and now he was the color of a beet. Kylo then held out his fist and raised his middle finger, then his index. Kylo popped these in his mouth, sucked them, and tugged them out. The two fingers glistened wet in the morning light.

Kylo put his dry hand on her knee and he said, “Are you watching this?” His wet hand went went between her spread legs he wasn’t supposed to do that. Kylo pressed her other knee down and hushed through his lips. Rey shuffled in bed, her limbs weighed down by lead. Her eyes roved around the tiny bedroom, as she tried to look for something someone to help her. She found Benjamin’s face, her big brother, staring at her with his jaw slack. _Benjamin_, Benjamin would help her she wasn’t _ready_. Benjamin would protect her he always has. So why, _why_ wasn’t he helping her, what was he _waiting_ for? Rey searched for his eyes, but he would not look at her.

Benjamin dipped his head, and he murmured something that she couldn’t hear.

Annoyed, Kylo turned and snapped _do you want me to do this fast or do it easy? _Benjamin rubbed at his mouth. Something passed between them, but her ears old not catch it. Instead she saw Kylo lick his lips and his brow furrowed. Then he turned to face Rey again.

“Look me in the eyes,” he said. His voice changed. Something soft and muffled, spoken from his nose. “This is gonna be quick as possible.” That was Benjamin’s voice. That was Benjamin’s voice but it came out of the one on top of her.

She felt him _touch_ her down _there_ and her spine jolted. He spread her apart and he hummed, “Guess who’s gonna get, a nice, big breakfast? How about eggs any way you want, and pancakes—” A hard thin object shoved inside her it hurt, it _hurt_. Tears came to her eyes, her hands scrambled against the bedsheets for purchase. “— with a little pat of butter and maple syrup, and _strawberries_ for a little rabbit,” he cooed in an unbroken stream. His other hand released her knee and slid under her, his palm cradling her bottom. He gave a _squeeze_ to the flesh of her buttocks and her _muscles_ contracted squeezing tight around the intrusion as though her body was a _sleeve_. 

Felt like she was being ripped in half. The _thing_ inside her shoved in, and it curled and raked against her walls like broken glass it hurt so much. From elsewhere came a stuttered breath and a low groan. When it pulled out, she felt a soreness too deep inside of her. The weird muscles inside of her strained and contracted as she had never used them before. She did not want to be touched anymore or to encourage the thought of being touched, so she squeezed her eyes shut and turned her face to the side. Her skin crawled as his other hand slid from her buttocks to her thigh, to paint gentle strokes against the surface of her skin. 

The men were talking again.

“Do you see now, Benji?” he said cheerfully. It seemed that Kylo returned. “You only had to _look_ at your girl and see how _green_ she was.”

There was a pause, and then the other said, “You tricked me,” in a dead tone.

“No, Benjamin. I made one off-handed comment which you then escalated, the little lady took affront, and then you drew _yourself_ to _your_ own _wild_ confabulations.”

“You _tricked_ me,” Benjamin repeated, in a broken way. “Get — get _out.”_

_“Now? You want a poke at her now?”_ he asked, disgusted. “You’re so _gotdamn stupid_; this is why I suggested to you the _easy way_.”

“_Get off her._” Benjamin’s voice dropped lower, to something _pained_. Sweat broke out on Rey’s brow, but she refused to open her eyes. Better to play dead, both men were not to be trusted. Both were animals. 

Kylo sensed the change too, because suddenly he went quiet. She felt the mattress squeak and the heat of his body as he crawled over her. “You sleep tight, little rabbit,” he breathed, before pressing a kiss to her damp temple, slicked with cold sweat. The other made a low sound and then the weight of the man lifted off of the bed. There was some shuffling. Then the door squeaked closed.

Rey waited, and waited, but all was still. All was quiet. No sounds of screaming, no trucks starting or driving to or away from the dirt lot, no fighting no pans banging no plates crashing to the floor, no bodies thrown into antique Alderaanian cabinets, no wrestling, no squeal of bedsprings. No birds sang in the badlands.


	9. Morning After

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yiss thank u for reading me! I like reading wot u think happens next :3   
tho sometimes I wonder if I should answer your questions in the text or in the comment section - things are befuddled bc there's a way that Rey sees things and a way Ben sees things   
Here's the start to Act 3 - the last Act, bc I didn't want to leave them in limbo forever

On that same day Rey made up her mind and decided, that it was time for her to return to school. She missed her friends Finn, Rose, and Poe Dameron. She did not care anymore about what the other students would gossip about her, she just had to get out of this house. She had to get away, _now_.

Rey dressed herself as best as she could, despite the shaking and numbness in her limbs. Then she stuffed the necessary book and notebook in her bag, and homework long forgotten, and forced herself to step out of that bedroom. It felt like a lifetime ago that her biggest concern was understanding her yellowed and dog-eared copy of _Catcher in the Rye_. 

She walked out into the parlor, and there she stopped dead in her tracks, because one of _them_ sat out there on the sofa. Now I will describe him to you, so that you can guess which one it was. He had a book in-hand, but on his face he wore no glasses. He wore blue jeans and a button-down cotton shirt; neither articles matched her memory of last night. His dark hair curled around his face and ended at his broad shoulders. From his face he looked as shocked to see her as she was. His wide eyes flickered to the book, then to her face, before slowly he set the book down on his lap. The book was laid spine-up face-down, as if he would pick it up right after.

If you guessed _Benjamin,_ then you made the same guess as Rey. So she felt marginally safe declaring, “I think that I‘m well enough to go to school.”

Benjamin looked at her like he did not hear her. Her skin crawled and she hitched her book bag up her shoulder, the bag being yet another hand-me-down from one of the brothers. The house seemed to suck the noise out of her words: _Can you drive me to school_. Then she wondered maybe if she was talking to the _other_ brother, that this was some sick act he was putting on hence the staring and the long silent treatment. 

Then his mouth moved, and in a trembling voice he asked, “_Do you feel better now_?” She knew in an acutely painful way that this was Benjamin. 

At once everything below her midriff began to ache. Her throat closed into a funnel. How _dare_ he look at her like that? How could he have let this happen? 

“_Rey_,” he said. He stood up and the book slid off his lap and hit the floor. His eyes glistened. His nostrils flared. “_Do you feel better?_”

She couldn’t move, and couldn’t look away, but to continue doing so opened a gulf inside her chest. He took a step towards her and she shook her head sharply, gripping the strap of the book bag. _Don’t touch me, don’t touch me,_ she pleaded.

His body hunched, and he held his arms open, palms out. Tears blurred his face, but it did nothing to deafen his soft, shuddering voice. “_I love you_,” he said, brokenly. “_I love you, so much_.”

A part of Rey realized, that once he pulled her into his arms, she would close her eyes and forgive him for all that happened. She would forget, everything, and she would be his little sister again, or his doll or whatever he wanted her to be next. This terrified her; this filled her with the kind of self-revulsion that made a girl want to peel off her own skin. 

Just then, footsteps sounded from outside. The front door creaked and into the parlor stepped a tall man. He wore khaki pants, and an A-shirt that showed off his long, toned arms. He raised his hands and flattened his hair over his large ears. Cooly he swept his gaze over the scene in front of him. He looked at Rey with half-lidded eyes, panting through reddened lips. She felt a sick thrill down her spine at the sight.

“Mornin,” he hummed. He stalked inside, and stood next to his wax sculpture. Then Benjamin straightened, and he grabbed the book off the floor and placed it on the side table, before straightening again like a toy soldier. “What’s going on in here?”

Rey felt pinned to the wall behind her. Benjamin said, “She says she’s feeling better.”

“That so,” said Kylo.

Benjamin nodded. “She says she’s ready to go back to school,” he reported eagerly. 

It took a second for Rey to realize that Benjamin had just betrayed her. She could see it confirmed in Kylo’s broad smile. “That so,” he said.

“I can drive her,” said Benjamin, and he placed his hands on his waist. “It has been a couple weeks, but I’ll explain it to the principal. She knows me.” 

“I’ll bet she does.”

“Yeah, she’s the same one since you left... Rey is a good apple, not like those other little shitheads; I’ll just explain the extenuating circumstance. Hell, I’ll explain it to all of her teachers, and she can go right back to...”

Kylo raised his hand and placed it on Benjamin’s shoulder, and silenced that beautiful dream.

“What about your breakfast?” said Kylo, now addressing his sister. “I think I promised you eggs any way you like, and pancakes with butter and maple syrup. And did I mention blueberries? Or raspberries was it? Benjamin, what goddamn berries did I promise the baby rabbit?”

Benjamin lowered his head, but a few cajoling shakes of the shoulder made him mutter the word _strawberries_.

Kylo snapped his fingers. “Strawberries!” he exclaimed, his crooked teeth flashing in a crooked smile. 

The words summoned unwanted memories and unwelcome sensations below her waist. She wondered how could Benjamin just _stand_ there, with his head bowed like a beaten dog. It felt so unreal to her, how they could all be standing in this room after what had happened. Oh God she wished it didn’t happen. She wished none of it had happened.

“But what about school,” she said weakly.

Benjamin’s head snapped towards her, but Kylo clicked his tongue and he said sadly, “It’s better to start the day right.” He beckoned toward her with a few flicks of his large hand. _C’mere, rabbit_, he cooed. 

Rey looked to Benjamin who looked down at his feet, and then looked to Kylo who gazed at her with an expression like _sympathy_. Neither moved. Woodenly, Rey placed one foot in front of the other, and then the other, bringing her closer to the two men. 

Kylo stepped in beside her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, just _squeezing_ the strap of the backpack. “I don’t remember a time when you _ever_ wanted to go to that _boring_, _dinky_ old _school_,” he sighed in her ear. Rey was lead to a seat at the kitchen table, where she clutched the backpack tightly to her chest like a talisman to ward off evil. Kylo sauntered to the stove and placed a cast-iron pan there before going to the fridge door. Somehow someway he pulled out a couple eggs and some slices of bacon from the bowels of the fridge. Somehow someway he could always get whatever he wanted. “Remember how Mama used to drag you kicking and screaming outta bed to get you to school?” Kylo laughed.

_Remember_, he asked her. Rey squeezed the straps of that backpack so tightly her fingers grew numb and white. Her vision blurred until there was only the broad back of the man in front of her. His tone was familiar, the height and breadth of his body familiar, but all of his stories were ten years old or older and they drifted in a dense fog that made the outlines of things vague. Yet still he imposed his stories on her: remember when you hated vegetables, remember when you were afraid of the dark. _Remember when you were small and weak, when you fit in my bed_.

If even he stood about six feet away from her, he could not be further away from her if he stood on the face of the moon. She realized at last that despite his face, this man was a _stranger_. Strangers were to be _feared_ in the badlands; devils sometimes liked to wear a human face.

The other one, Benjamin, eventually materialized in the seat beside her, but he said nothing. He was nothing. Like one last cry for help, Rey looked at him and bleated, _I want to go to school_. Her brother looked at her through the hair that obscured his face, then looked down at the dining table. 

“You don’t even need it, baby girl,” Kylo answered for him. “You have two big brothers who’ll take care of you in every way.”


	10. A Shorter Chapter Than I Thought

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank u for your comments and for reading this ;w;  
If u wondered why Ben is now a shrinking violet, it's because Kylo is printing excuses for their awful behavior  
They are both dirtbags but Ben is the _slightly_ lesser evil which is why he is so fun to write
> 
> TW (for this chapter): brief mention of abortion, mention of family/CPS and I'll put that in the tags

After breakfast, Kylo pulled him aside and asked, “What in the hell are you doing?”

Ben was startled. He was hoping to return to the car and find his glasses, so he could get in his chair to get some reading done. Now that he had no job, he was unsure of what to do with himself. Every day was like a weekend, or like the long nightmares he gets where there’s something he needs to do but _Rey’s gone and it’s too late _and he wakes up in bed all sweaty unsure if he’s awake or still dreaming. Kylo grabbed him by the front of his shirt and dragged him outside the front of the house. The sun was absent, replaced by a sky the color of a sheet of paper. No wind.

“_Don’t you get her hopes up_,” Kylo snapped, shoving Ben so he stumbled on the gravel driveway. 

“_What_-.”

“What’re you doing talking to her about _school_?” Kylo spat, suddenly furious. 

“She wanted to go to -.”

Kylo shoved him in the chest again and Ben stumbled backwards. Ben didn’t like that; without his glasses he could not read his brother’s moves. Though even if he _did_ have glasses, _honestly_, Ben was out of practice with _real_ fighting ever since his schooling ended, and he did not go to bars or other social gatherings to check himself regularly against the menfolk. Bad memories came up in crowded places. 

“Did you _want_ another _Leia_?” Kylo snapped. He wrung his hands, his lip pulled into a snarl. “Tell me, _Einstein_, is she some sort of _Oedipus_ _complex_ you’re _acting out_?”

Ben was too startled to speak. 

“She doesn’t _need_ school,” Kylo said. “There are more important things than _grades_ and _money_ and your _stupid books_.” Then he stepped closer until only two inches separated them. There was darkness in his eyes. “What do you think happens once she’s in school.” 

“I -.” Ben sweated. 

“What do you think will happen,” Kylo demanded, _contemptuous_. “You tell me, Benjamin. You look me in the eye.”

The image flickered before Benjamin’s eyes. Rey on her back, her legs spread. He saw himself pushing his fingers _into_ her. 

_Couldn’t you go to jail for that_? Ben swallowed a hard lump down his throat. He had heard the stories. Girls in school with round and hard bellies, by their own cousins, brothers, uncles. Mama looked down on it with disgust and called it _white trash_, and Ben did the same. But not a good thing ever came of it, did it? Ironically the _Family Services_ came and tore _families_ apart. Livelihoods were ruined, little babies aborted. 

His shaking hands closed into fists. Ben loved the girl, the _little rabbit_. He would _kill_ anybody who ever tried to take her away from them. She kind of _belonged_ to them anyways, didn’t she? 

Kylo stepped away, for he knew he had won. “I’m goin out,” he said loftily. “I’m goin out for a drive. You keep her _safe_.”

.

They were alone now, he and his sister. Ben walked into an empty parlor and learned that Rey had returned to her room. He looked down and saw that his old backpack — _hers_, now — slumped on the floor. He picked it up and realized, for a moment, its weight. _Good god_, he thought, hefting it in his hands. It was easy for him to carry, but he could not imagine his little sister hefting that to and from school without hurting herself; she was such a _slight_ creature. Again, his brother had a point.

“Rey?” He loved her beautiful name in his mouth. It meant _king_ in Spanish. It fit her because she was such a spoiled tomboy. “Rey,” he grabbed the handle of her door and twisted it, but the door did not give. Again he felt _surprise_. “Rey?” He rapped his knuckles on the wood door and rattled the knob in his hand. 

From inside came a muffled wail, _Leave me alone_.

Confusion blighted his senses; only rarely was her door ever locked. She was once afraid to do it, because she had accidentally locked herself inside their room when she was very small. “Okay, sweetheart,” he murmured, before stepping away and returning to the parlor. He picked up the book he was reading and sat down on the loveseat, her book bag set down at his feet. 

Didn’t she realize she _belonged_ to them? He pushed the ghost of his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He remembered last night. He remembered the red that glinted off of his brother’s fingers. His teeth clacked together. He gripped the paperback in his hands tightly, eyes misting up the thin and yellowed words. What he and his brother did was not _moral_, but it could be _understood_. It could be _forgiven_. That was what Kylo had explained to him. She needed to be taught this. So how could she be taught, if she locked herself away inside her room?

There was a click. His brow raised, as her pretty tear-stricken face peered into the parlor. Surely, there must be _some_ sort of divine power that _hears_ his thoughts and _agrees_ with them, he thought to himself. The rest of her stepped inside, as tentative as a doe. Today she wore a faded pink cardigan and a long, grey dress. She did not look like his jacket-and-blue-jeans sister, but more like a shy wallflower, with mousy brown hair. Likewise she looked him up, then down, slowly, _warily_. That took him back — he had not seen _that_ behavior before, not since she was about knee-high and he and Kylo would switch clothes and mannerisms. She would cry a lot after these little pranks.

With a chuckle he asked, “You don’t recognize your own brother?” He meant it in a teasing way, but Rey straightened herself suddenly. There was trepidation in her eyes. Benjamin set aside the book, then —shaking his head, he picked the book back up. “_Invisible Man_,” he said, tapping the cover. “Can you imagine Kylo reading this? For _fun_?”

Her throat pulsed as she swallowed. “What’s it about?” she asked. “If you read it, you can tell me.”

He felt real silly, but his sister looked at him serious. “It’s about black people,” he ventured. “Are you reading it for school, too?”

“Go on,” she snapped.

Now he felt uncomfortable, because _Invisible Man_ was a wholly different animal from _Catcher in the Rye_. He mentioned themes of alienation and the loss of identity. The narrator tries to fit the image of what people expect him to be or want him to be to fit their conception of a black man, but he fails. Rey stared at him as he did so and his words stumbled, his throat cracked. He felt he was on the verge of losing her completely, when at _last_ she nodded.

She lowered her eyes to the floor. “Is... is he, _around_?” she asked softly.

Benjamin shook his head. At that, her face lit up, all _hopeful_.

“Benjamin, I...” She approached the loveseat but stopped, just a foot away. She glanced down and snatched her backpack from off the floor, which she clutched in front of her over her chest. “Let’s go to school, okay?”

Benjamin raised his hands to his absent glasses.

“He took _his_ car, yeah?” she said brightly. “I can fetch you _your_ keys if you just tell me where they are. Here, I can...” She walked away briefly and into the kitchen, and then she walked right back out and asked, “It’s not on the hook by the wall; where is it?” She stalked back into the parlor, her pretty smile _strained_. 

Benjamin made a poor show of glancing around the parlor, but _oh_ he could guess just where his keys were. Then he scooched himself to his side of the loveseat.

“I’m feeling better,” Rey added, her arms squeezing tight around her backpack.

“Why don’t you set that down, rabbit,” he said, patting the space beside him. “Sit here with me.”

Her bright eyes darkened and she took a step backward. That backpack she clutched like a shield against her chest. He could see where she was heading towards; why _once_ _he could see every single thought inside her pretty little head_.

“_Wait_ \- don’t go into your room,” Ben said, and he outstretched his hand. Rey flinched. “_Please, just talk to me_,” he blurted out. 

“_We have nothing to say_,” she said tightly. The wooden clock on the wall ticked on and on. Han bought that clock from a pawn shop; a cuckoo bird was supposed to shoot out of it, but it never showed. “_Please take me to school_.”

_Would you run away from me? _he asked her silently. Would she talk to somebody and escalate this to something more than it really was? Try to get him thrown in a cell for a couple days? He wasn’t worth the effort; he had no rap sheet and no cop round these parts would hold him longer than two days. She could ruin his reputation, but he suspected his job prospects were already null and void after what he did to Kes. Would she run off to live with her friends? Benjamin _knew_ where all her little friends lived: Poe Dameron, Rose, and Finn. He would drag her right back home, where she belonged. 

She could do what Kylo did and take a bus to the city, but _oh_ he feared she would _not_ be as _fortunate_ as their brother. She was pretty and small and _sweet_, whereas Kylo was never those things. She trusted too often and believed in good intention, and _look where it landed her now_. A little rabbit could not last long in the city; Ben could imagine beating up her pimp and dragging her back home.

Maybe Kylo was right: maybe their baby sister was a _touch_ spoiled.

“Rey,” he said, “sit down.” 

If she left he would remove the lock from her door; instead she lingered. She looked at him and looked to the space beside him, and try as she might she could not tear her eyes away.

"You're right where you belong," he said gently, for it was the truth.


End file.
